Events

No big conferences today, but that sure as heck doesn't mean nothing was happening! Kreese got down and dirty with Sega's Alpha Protocol - a game I'm suddenly very interested in. He also started another fight with Halo 3: ODST, and took a geeze at BioShock 2 multiplayer - must read previews.

Alpha Protocol
Halo 3: ODST
BioShock 2 Mulitplayer

On the trailers front - there were a few that slipped by us earlier like Street Fighter IV PC, Lost Planet 2 and of course the Halo games.

Street Fighter IV PC trailer
Lost Planet 2 trailer
Halo 3: ODST
Halo Reach

And from today - the biggest ones are Uncharted 2, Heavy Rain and Castlevania: Lod of Shadows... If Hideo Kojima is doing a Castlevania meets God of War game starring Robert Carlyle and Patrick Stewart, you know the expectations are high.

Uncharted 2
Heavy Rain
Castlevania: Lod of Shadows

Section 8
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2
Ratchet and Clank Future
Wet

Kreese is gallivanting about LA right now, sending me more pics from E3 as he continues his efforts to get hands on with everything.

Some of the pics he sent came with explanations, others didn't. Let's have a look at what Kreese has been up to so far.


Some sort of Modern Warfare 2 countdown perhaps?

We're going to do this play-by-play style, as there was a lot going on. We were essentially given a brief rundown of the single player component of BioShock 2, but then jumped into witnessing a live match of "Survival of the Fittest" (FFA) between 2K staffers.

Sadly no hands on...yet. Here's how and when it went down...

Where we got to see everything but the thing everyone MOST wants to see, Project Natal. Don't worry - we're doing our best to see if we too can get an audience with Milo and friends.

What we did see today: a four session series covering Halo 3: ODST, Forza Motorsport 3, Xbox Live's upcoming features and Alan Wake. All were demoed and played live in front of us (including Alan Wake) and the results were quite impressive.

First cab off the rank - Halo 3: ODST...

Espionage is big this year. Selling itself as a "modern day spy RPG", Alpha Protocol at first glance can be thought of as Mass Cell. Or Splinter Effect. But that probably doesn't do this justice. You play as Michael Thorton, a newbie CIA officer who gets caught up in a conspiracy, finding himself on the run from The Man...

Today was a good day... We didn't get to see many AK's. Except for the ones in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, MAG, Uncharted 2, The Conduit...

Terrible joke, but any excuse for Ice Cube lyrics. Today's biggest announcements all came from Nintendo and Sony naturally. Nintendo focused on their classics - new Mario Galaxy, new New Super Mario Bros, new Metroid (from Team Ninja, so expect fully featured breast physics on Samus).

Nintendo E3 Conference

Sony too had some classics - MGS:PW on PSP, Gran Turismo on PSP, a brand new PSP - plus some new stuff in the way of gameplay from God of War 3 and MAG plus Assassin's Creed 2 in action. Hot.

Sony E3 Press Conference

It's not all about the big guys though - make sure you check out the Hearts of Iron 3, Majesty 2 and East India trailers to see what the indie devs are bringing to the table.

Majesty 2 Trailer
Hearts of Iron 3 trailer
East India

Other trailers you might have missed today,

Mario & Luigi 3
New Super Mario Bros Wii
Crysis 2
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Metroid Other M
Final Fantasy XIV Online
Dead Rising 2
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Sony has been languishing in last place with PlayStation 3, and with the company's financials in trouble, the games team needed to deliver an inspirational performance as much to bolster confidence internally as well as with punters, third parties, and media.

With serious information leak problems affecting the company - most of their big announcements being leaked in advance - the team may have been concerned about the eventual impact. Not to worry, Sony has put in arguably their best E3 conference in years. Here's how it went down...

Nintendo enter E3 2009 in a dominant position amongst every part of the market except dedicated gamers. Everyone was wondering what Nintendo might bring to the table for the true believers.

Would the big N chastise third party publishers for not making good enough games for the Wii as it had in the past, or would it be more conciliatory? The answers lie below in the massive wall of text we call "Nintendo's E3 conference"...

Kreese is at the Eminem vs Jay-Z event by now, but to keep you all over the big news from the day we thought we'd compile everything into one big post.

By now if you haven't seen Kreese's blow-by-blow accounts of the Ubisoft and Microsoft conferences, make sure you check them out. Even if you have you should have a look - we've updated both with relevant trailer links.

Microsoft E3 Conference Notes
Ubisoft E3 Conference Notes
MS E3 Conf Impressions

Meanwhile, if you haven't seen the photos taken throughout the day head to the Photo-Journal for pics he took from his iPhone - the SLR gets some love tomorrow, apparently.

A Kreese-tastic Photo-Journal

On the trailer front, we're all over the place over The Old Republic, APB, Alan Wake and - of course - The Beatles: Rock Band.

The Old Republic Trailer
All Points Bulletin (APB)
Alan Wake
The Beatles: Rock Band
Assassin's Creed 2
Splinter Cell Conviction Trailer
Splinter Cell Conviction Gameplay

Ok, so if you haven't yet heard of APB it's a cops and robbers MMO by the guys who made Crackdown - one team plays the goodies, the others the baddies across a dynamic urban environment.

The ideas for the game are pretty radical - and pretty promising. And today at E3 it was announced that Realtime Worlds - the guys making the game - have signed with EA. The multinational megacorporation which brought Warhammer Online servers to Australia. Smiles all round then.

The trailer's looking pretty good as well - watch it in our videos library now and tell us what you think... If you had to pick one MMO out of E3 this year, what's it going to be?

APB Official Site